Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

Driving to Chicago from West Michigan is a fairly monotonous and tedious four hours spent in the car, only broken up by switching to find a new NPR station or adjusting your clocks to keep up with the changing time zones. While it's more efficient and less work on your part, you could take the train to get from A to B, either the Pere Marquette Amtrak line or the South Shore Commuter Line to save you the hassle of looking for parking in the city. The downside of taking the trains is that it isn't as easy to get on/get off at will. But say you decide to take the Commuter Line into the city and get to Michigan City, IN an hour early because you forgot about the time change. What do you do for an hour? If you're like me, you will probably not want to spend it sitting in your car. This recently happened to me over the weekend and I decided to check out a little slice of Midwestern wilderness at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

Indiana Dunes is one of the four National Lakeshores under the supervision of the National Park Service. Of the four National Lakeshores, two were created in 1966: Pictured Rocks along the Lake Superior shoreline between Munising and Grand Marais, MI; and Indiana Dunes along the Lake Michigan shoreline between Michigan City and Gary, IN.

Originally, this area was settled by Potawatomi Native Americans until Joseph Bailly, a fur trader settled here with his family in the early 1800s on the Little Calumet River that now flows through the park. His home and various buildings associated with his trading business are still accessible along the Little Calumet River Trail.

Joseph Bailly's house

Storage shed for Joseph Bailly's fur trade

The trail passes through Joseph Bailly's trading center and used to then follow along the Little Calumet River, but was rerouted to take visitors through 130 acres of restored prairie land. This section of the trail was one of the many locations in Indiana Dunes NL that you realize you are not very far from industry as giant powerlines tower over the horizon and the muffled drone of highway traffic is heard. Putting that aside, however, you begin to notice the constant chirping of birds, daisies and clover bobbing in the breeze, and the common rustle of the underbrush indicating a chipmunk or squirrel is watching you. I am not sure what the trail is like at other times of the year, but the flowers seem to be out in full force late-June.

Prairie land along the Little Calumet River Trail

Wild flowers guiding the way along the path

The trail then turns back toward the river and leads you across a bridge and along a raised wooden walkway as you meander between the trunks of sugar maples, aspens, tall oaks, black cherry, white pine, and sassafras trees, among others. Heed the warning of signs you see along the river regarding the polluted water; you have to remember that areas surrounding this land have been heavily industrialized at a time when there were no laws regulating chemical waste. I found, though, that taking a few minutes down by the river awarded me with the chance to watch damselflies carefully land on leaves by the banks.

Bridge over the Little Calumet River

Damselfly in the afternoon sun

The trail I took was about three miles long, but I cannot remember the last time I saw so much wildlife in one little hike. At one point on the trail, I was inspecting what seemed to be some sort of animal enclosure and then off to my right, no quite 40 feet away, five deer crossed the path and bounded into the woods - two doe and three fawns! Though my camera was at the ready, I wasn't quick enough to catch them!

After a little while I was worried I had taken the wrong trail. I didn't have a map with me and my phone was in my car, so I was a little anxious, but soon after crossing a few more bridges and going up and down a few stairways, I was let out at the site of the Chellberg Farm where the history of Swedish farmers coming to northern Indiana from Chicago is remembered. It's a very picturesque farm with a two-story brick farmhouse, a large white barn and adjoining fenced fields, now overgrown with tallgrass and wild corn, and a shed behind the barn with examples of period farm equipment.

Chellberg Farm farmhouse

Chellberg Farm barn

Fields at Chellberg Farm.

After walking the Little Calumet River Trail, I stopped at the main Visitors' Center - the Dorothy Buell Memorial Visitors' Center - which is nothing more than a glorified rest stop. There is nothing to do there, and I don't recommend wasting your time there. However, if you are like me and participate in the National Parks Passport Program, you need to stop at the Visitors' Center to get your stamp.

 I had a little bit of time left, so I drove over to Lake View and the Dune Ridge Trail. Lake View is a picnic area right along a thin stretch of Lake Michigan. There are not really dunes here, per se, and it's kind of uninspiring. But the little half-mile walk I took at the Dune Ridge Trail was full of things to see. Right along the trail next to the parking lot was a turtle and I kept seeing little sand lizards dart from one shaded clump of dune grass to the next. I didn't even know there were lizards that lived in the dune grass!! The trail takes you up to the top of an overgrown sand dune where you can get views of huge interdunal ponds and wetlands. The flowers were also in full bloom here and I got a great live demonstration of how insects are used to pollinate flowers.

 

 

Now, I think I was a little misleading about my itinerary from the beginning of this post. I mentioned I had an hour to spare before my train came to the Michigan City station. In fact, nothing of what I've posted so far was done in that hour. I came back to explore more of the park after my weekend spent in Chicago. In that free hour, I drove just inside the Park boundaries and parked at Mt. Baldy, a 126-foot high moving sand dune. I had to be quick here, but there was not much else to do. With camera in hand, I hoofed it up the dune along trails rerouted to keep people from climbing up the backside of the dune. The dune is constantly in motion and monitored closely with results showing that the crest of the dune is moving south at the quick rate of four feet per year! On the north side of the dune you can see where sand used to be because now entire tree-root systems are exposed that once were under sand. And though the ever-present cooling tower of the nearby nuclear power station puffs steam, there is something oddly beautiful about this juxtaposition of industry and nature.

Cottonwoods on top of the dune

The northern slope of Mt. Baldy

 

You can kind of see bands of lighter and darker sand which are little wind-swept ripples of sand

 

Within the total span of no more than four hours, I was able to do and see quite a lot of this National Park; but there was still so much left to see! South of the main park land is the Heron Rookery, where herons build their nests and in the Spring you might see baby herons. And then there is the Pinhook Bog, which is not open to the public, but you can participate in a ranger-led tour to get up close with pitcher plants and sphagnum bogs! Let's just say that one visit is not enough. I didn't even get to the western half of the park! I will definitely be making another stop here yet this summer!